1. High Performers in IT:
Defined
by Digital
consulting |
Insights from
Accenture’s fourth
technology | outsourcing
High Performance
IT research

2. CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
INSIGHTS
01
It really is all about the customer
02
Context is the “once and future king”
03
IT strategy and business
strategy are one and the same
3
7
9
04
Mastering a hybrid IT environment
11
05
Diving deeper into digital
15
06
Empowered employees are the
force for digital business
07
Mastering data to drive outcomes
creates competitive advantage
23
08
Adopting agile to become agile
27
09
Investing early in technology skills
provides an edge
31
10
The marriage of IT security
and business risk
33
CONCLUSION 36
ACCENTURE
Profile of a High Performer
38
How Accenture measures
High Performance
39
About the research report
19
40
# D i g i t a l IT

3. INTRODUCTION
High performers in IT are consolidating the noticeable
lead that they have opened up in recent years.
Not only are they finding novel ways to optimize—
holding down costs and streamlining processes across
their organizations—but they are also actively driving
innovation and top-line growth. Increasingly, they are
central to their organizations’ strategic directions—
and increasingly, those directions are defined by
digital. Here are the highlights of Accenture’s fourth
High Performance IT research, with the digital
dimension clearly visible.
H i g h P er f o rm a nce IT re s e a rch
1

4. Take charge of your
digital journey.
That gap persists today, as the high performers,
more in tune with the business than ever, look to
That’s probably what high-performing CIOs would
all things digital to upgrade a host of processes
tell their peers if they weren’t so busy propelling
and to catapult their organizations forward.
their own businesses toward the digital future.
Increasingly, they are using digital tools and
systems to push for excellence across all three
These high performers clearly see IT as a strategic
asset that can help them renew vital aspects
IT agility, and IT execution. Here’s how Verizon
of their operations—optimizing at least and
Wireless’ CIO, Shankar Arumugavelu, describes
innovating at best. They are investing in the
that push: “Technology trends like mobile, cloud,
digital tools, capabilities, and skills to more easily
social media, and big data have moved beyond
pinpoint useful data, evaluate it, excerpt it,
the experimentation stage. Any business that
analyze it, derive insights from it, share it,
uses these trends to drive market differentiation,
manage it, comment on it, report on it, and,
growth, innovation, profitability is what I
most important, act on it.
2
dimensions of High Performance IT: IT innovation,
consider a digital business.”
What a difference a decade can make. The digital
direction seemed like such an impractical notion
not long ago. In 2005 and 2006, Accenture’s
High Performance IT research was describing
the typical CIO’s austerity trap, in which cutting
costs only prolonged dependence on legacy
systems. By the start of the global economic
High performers are using digital
tools and systems to push for
excellence across all three dimensions
of High Performance IT: IT innovation,
IT agility, and IT execution.
crisis, high performers had begun to take a
strategic approach to cutting costs, breaking with
their legacy roots. By 2009, there was a definite
This report captures the highlights of Accenture’s
performance gap between the high-performing
High Performance IT research and shows how a
CIOs and the rest.
digital “thread” now runs throughout most of
them. Let’s consider the top ten findings and
describe what we mean.
ACCENTURE
# D i g i t a l IT

5. 01
02
03
04
06
07
08
09
INSIGHT 01
It really is all
about the customer
High performers’ business objectives are very
different from those of others. While most
organizations continue to be internally focused
on cost, productivity, and processes, high
performers’ foremost objectives are related to
improving the customer’s experience.
Indeed, Accenture’s research found that the high
performers’ top three business priorities related to
ensuring that their IT investment strategies were
linked to their customers. (See Figure 1.) They are
concerned about providing the right information
to the right person—customer, partner, or
employee—at the right time; they are seeking
better ways to interact with their customers;
High Performance IT research
3

6. and they are keen to deliver new services or
products to them. Further emphasizing the point:
in organizations that weren’t high performers,
these customer issues had a much lower priority.
In 2008, our research revealed that, in terms
of technical and business adequacy, customerfacing systems were among an organization’s
poorest-performing applications. Five years later,
our research shows once again that the end
customer is last in line outside the CIO’s door
at most organizations. (See Figure 2.) Moreover,
the enterprises we surveyed told us that they
actually spend slightly less on customer-related
applications than they do on other applications.
Yet high performers understand that customers—
including consumers, business customers, and
4
citizens, in the case of government—are expecting
the same, if not better, experience, speed, detail
of information, and flexibility that they get from
their personal technology. They ensure that
customer-facing applications are meeting their
business and technical needs.
The digital direction is all too clear in leading
companies’ relationships with customers. They
understand that technology, which has created
frustration and corroded relationships with
customers, is now at the point at which buyers
can again be treated as individuals. “Today’s
technologies allow businesses to be more
predictive around consumer preference and
consumer behaviors,” says Bill VanCuren, CIO
of NCR Corp., the global consumer transaction
technology company. “They give the consumers
more choice not just in what they’re buying but in
the channels through which they’re transacting.”
1
4
FIGURE 1
High performers’
top three business
objectives are
related to customers
Ranking importance of business objectives to CIOs’ IT investment strategies
HIGH
PERFORMERS
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
4
Providing the right information to the right person at the right time
2
5
Finding better ways to interact with customers
3
6
Delivering new services or products to customers
4
1
Cutting business operational costs
5
2
Increasing workforce productivity
6
3
Automating core business processes
7
7
Supporting our business innovation process
8
9
Supporting geographic expansion
9
ACCENTURE
1
8
Securing our intellectual capital and company information
# D i g i t a l IT

7. Companies now have rich channels through
which they can communicate with customers
in much more personal ways: not only do they
found a considerable gap between the high
now have unprecedented opportunities to track
performers and others in this regard: nearly
what people are saying about them, but they can
one-third of high performers’ customer
also leverage digital technologies to create and
interactions are already completely self-service,
sustain relationships that will result in customer
with seamless interfaces across channels (for
acquisition and, for current customers, repeat sales.
example, mobile, social media, and the Web); the
comparable figure for other companies is only
Commonwealth Bank of Australia understands
about one-fifth, or 21 percent. The goal of the
this. The bank has transformed its IT approach with
exemplars is to push this up to 56 percent as soon
a focus on moving from “product” to “relationship”
as possible. Other companies don’t have such
value. Every decision the bank has made in the
ambition: they expect to raise the bar only to
course of modernizing its core banking platform
43 percent of customer interactions in the future.
has been driven by a focus on customer experience
and real-time relationship value.1
5
Aside from digital’s impact on how customers
feel, it is also helping IT departments optimize
business processes and cut costs. Our research
FIGURE 2
Are your applications currently meeting your business and technical needs?
HIGH PERFORMERS
applications
5.0
Meeting needs
Meeting needs
4.0
Industry Specific
Human Resources
Finance & Accounting
Supply Chain
Operations
Customer Service
Sales & Marketing
4.0
TECHNICAL NEEDS
TECHNICAL NEEDS
front-office
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
5.0
3.0
2.0
3.0
2.0
3.0
BUSINESS NEEDS
4.0
5.0
portfolio’s
best performing
applications in
terms of technical
adequacy—and the
poorest for all
2.0
1.0
are among their
and business
other organizations
Meeting needs
1.0
High performers’
Meeting needs
1.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
BUSINESS NEEDS
High Performance IT research

8. 50
% of high performers explore future
economic, geopolitical, social, and
business scenarios as part of IT
creative processes.
6
ACCENTURE
# D i g i t a l IT

9. 02
03
04
05
07
08
09
10
INSIGHT 02
Context is the “once
and future king”
High performers do not view things in
isolation. Exploring a wide range of business
scenarios—for instance, economic, geopolitical,
and social—is part and parcel of their IT planning
processes. The latest High Performance IT research
reveals that during IT planning, high performers’
enthusiasm for exploring business scenarios
within the overall economic, geopolitical,
and social context is five times that of other
organizations. (See Figure 3.)
High Performance IT research
7

10. That means that they actively listen to and
understand their fellow executives’ issues from
a business viewpoint; they don’t see the world
It’s clear that high-performing CIOs have
solely through IT glasses. They also make it their
mastered these business-savvy requirements—and
business to seek out wider perspectives, and they
it is interesting to note that they have been in
expect the same of their top lieutenants. This
their positions longer than the average CIO. They
allows high performers to add a lot more value:
have had opportunities to see the results of their
they understand where the business is headed.
efforts, enhancing their own reputations within
their organizations.
High performers also track the impact of their
investments on business metrics more often than
do other organizations. And all high performers
expect moderate to significant improvement
in those metrics in the next year—especially in
customer and employee satisfaction.
High performers don’t see
the world solely through IT glasses.
8
FIGURE 3
High performers
explore business
scenarios as
part of their IT
planning process
Today, our IT organization consistently
explores future economic, geopolitical,
social, and business scenarios as part
of our IT planning or IT strategy
creation processes
50%
10%
HIGH
PERFORMERS
ACCENTURE
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
# D i g i t a l IT

11. 03
04
05
08
09
10
INSIGHT 03
IT strategy and
business strategy are
one and the same
Accenture’s research confirms that high
performers invest to deliver strategic business
capabilities. It’s far more likely that their
organizations’ IT and business functions are
in sync, so their investments typically reflect
the strategy and needs of the business, with
the goal of creating differentiated businessdriven opportunities.
High Performance IT research
9

12. A few snapshots: high performers allocate 7
percent more of their IT budget to new projects
than do other organizations. Although their
between the sales rep and our customers. Now,
day-to-day IT operating expenses are expected to
about 20,000 of our reps nationwide are equipped
stay flat this year, 54 percent of high performers
with tablets which feature the point-of-sale
will spend significantly more on new projects.
system. So now they can work side by side with
And over half of those IT investments (55
customers. This really gets into consultative
percent, compared with just 37 percent at other
selling. That was a big win for us. It also helped
organizations) are designed to deliver strategic
us showcase the technologies that we sell;
capabilities within the business. (See Figure 4.)
customers were really able to understand what
can be done with a tablet. It led to additional
Verizon Wireless amply demonstrates this
sales for Internet devices as well.”
collaborative provision of such strategic
capabilities. “You can see a good example of
mobility at work—where we partnered closely
with our chief operating officer’s team—in how
we’ve been transforming our retail stores,”
10
explains CIO Shankar Arumugavelu. “Previously
in our stores, we had the desktop or laptop
High performers aren’t waiting for
new technologies to be developed or
to mature before they act.
FIGURE 4
High performers
invest to deliver
strategic business
What proportion of your IT investments
today is designed to deliver strategic
capabilities within the business?
capabilities
55
High performers, more and more in lockstep with
other executives in their organizations, certainly
see digital as a strategic imperative—a tool of
competitive intent. They aren’t waiting for new
%
37
%
technologies to be developed or to mature before
they act. They demonstrate a higher order of
thinking—a digital mindset—that will, we believe,
separate tomorrow’s most able organizations
from the rest.
HIGH
PERFORMERS
ACCENTURE
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
# D i g i t a l IT

13. 04
05
09
10
INSIGHT 04
Mastering a hybrid
IT environment
The results of Accenture’s High Performance IT
research provide unequivocal proof that high
performers are taking advantage of all that a
new hybrid approach—private and public clouds
coexisting with existing systems—has to offer.
Over the past few years, we have observed
how high performers have been disentangling
the legacy “hairball” and streamlining their
application portfolios, essentially crafting a lean
organization that can respond adroitly to the
volatility of today’s global markets.
High Performance IT research
00
11

14. As illustrated in Figure 5, the high performers are
now approaching new system architectures with
a “cloud first” mentality—they are already
increasingly to the public cloud by 2020. They
migrating workloads to the cloud and looking at
also expect that a substantial part of their IT
what can be achieved with the different forms of
footprint—whether infrastructure, middleware,
cloud, resulting in a hybrid cloud architecture.
or applications—will remain “traditional,” both
hosted and on-premise.
Hybrid cloud is not just a steppingstone; it is
integral to the future state of IT organizations.
The research shows that high performers will
To high performers, hybrid cloud is
not just a steppingstone; it is integral
to the future state of IT organizations.
expand their cloud footprint faster than other
organizations by migrating a larger proportion
of their workloads to private clouds by 2015 and
FIGURE 5
4b
are further along
in their transition
to private and
public clouds
Regarding current and future initiatives for cloud computing, what proportion of your infrastructure,
application development, and applications do you estimate will be distributed between traditional IT,
pay-per-use but single-tenant IT, transitioned to private cloud, and transitioned to public cloud?
Development
2015
7%
23
16
54
1%
9
10
80
NOW
14 %
33
15
38
2015
2020
Transitioned to IaaS
Transitioned to private cloud
Outsourced in a virtual private cloud
Traditional IT, in house and outsourced
ACCENTURE
NOW
2015
7%
15
13
65
1%
5
8
86
NOW
HIGH
PERFORMERS
27 %
20
2
51
20 %
24
1
55
10 %
16
1
73
2020
Applications
12 %
24
14
50
2015
2020
Transitioned to public PaaS
Transitioned to private cloud-based dev
Outsourced in a virtual private dev env
Traditional IT, in house and outsourced
13 %
24
1
62
6%
9
1
84
2020
NOW
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
NOW
HIGH
PERFORMERS
19 %
36
10
35
10 %
40
10
40
1%
31
11
57
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
HIGH
PERFORMERS
Infrastructure
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
12
High performers
18 %
22
1
59
2015
14 %
20
12
54
8%
11
11
70
3%
4
4
89
NOW
2020
2015
2020
Transitioned to public SaaS
Transitioned to private cloud application
Hosted cloud application
Traditional application license and maintenance
# D i g i t a l IT

15. FIGURE 6
Another way to look at this: one-third of high
performers are evolving their architecture by
replacing legacy components with private and
public cloud alternatives. (See Figure 6.)
We are evolving our architecture by
effectively replacing legacy architecture
components with private and public cloud
alternatives (”Today” compared with “Target”)
High performers
are replacing their
legacy architecture
with a more flexible
architecture
58
%
Put simply, high performers are getting the
outcomes they want from upgrading their
enterprise architectures. In particular, almost
half of high performers (40 percent versus
33%
21%
9 percent of other organizations) are seeing
measurable improvements in IT agility, and
4%
43 percent are experiencing better alignment of
their project portfolios with their IT and business
goals (compared with 20 percent of other
HIGH
PERFORMERS
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
organizations). Moreover, high performers are
not taking their eyes off the cost implications:
33 percent say their architecture transformations
connects consumers with partners, social
successfully lead to cost reductions (versus
recommendations, and other high-quality
14 percent for others).
content. Just 18 weeks after the Tripdiscover
project launched, Deutsche Telekom had a fully
A case in point: Deutsche Telekom opted
deployed, flexible, real-time scalable system
for Google’s platform-as-a-service offering,
intended to inspire and excite its users with a
Google App Engine platform, as the basis
new type of online travel-booking experience.2
for its Tripdiscover.de travel portal, which
High Performance IT research
13
00

16. Yet the challenge now is to manage provisioning
and integration between private and public
clouds, coupled with a hosted and on-premise
architecture in a secured and standardized way.
If other organizations are behind in this endeavor
It is further evident that the high performers have
today (only 1 percent are there), 40 percent intend
even been preparing their IT operations for this
to centrally manage a dynamically provisioned
challenge and are ready to manage production
infrastructure in the future—but will they catch
workloads in the hybrid cloud: more than one-
up to the high performers’ lead?
quarter (27 percent) are now fully committed to
using external cloud-based services that align
with their business needs, and almost one in
six (15 percent) already centrally manages a
fully virtualized and dynamically provisioned
infrastructure across multiple platforms.
(See Figure 7.)
14
FIGURE 7
High performers
are ready to
provision and
manage production
workloads
in the cloud
WeWe are fully committed using
are fully committed to to using
dynamically provisioned computing
dynamically provisioned computing
services; we we look leverage external
services; look to to leverage external
services as needed, supported by by
services as needed, supported
business needs (”Today” compared withwith “Target”)
business needs (”Today” compared “Target”)
22
22
40% %
40
% %
2% %
2
OTHER
HIGH
HIGH OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
PERFORMERS
PERFORMERS ORGANIZATIONS
ACCEN T U RE
ACCEN
RE
with “Target”)
with “Target”)
77% %
77
55% %
55
27% %
27
WeWe centrally managefully virtualized,
centrally manage a a fully virtualized,
unified environment across multiple
unified environment across multiple
platforms and dynamically provision
platforms and dynamically provision
infrastructure services (”Today” compared
infrastructure services (”Today” compared
15% %
15
1%1%
OTHER
HIGH
HIGH OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
PERFORMERS
PERFORMERS ORGANIZATIONS
# D i g i t a l IT

17. 05
10
INSIGHT 05
Diving deeper
into digital
15
High performers are expediting their journey to
digital, leading to a transformation in how goods
are designed and produced, how commercial
transactions are created and managed, how
information is accessed, how relationships are
formed, and how collaboration happens internally
and with customers and partners.
High performers have readily experimented with
and learned from early deployments of social
media, mobile, analytics, and cloud, as well as
foundational technologies such as virtualization,
security, and data management.
High Performance IT research

18. Accenture’s research bears this out.
(See Figure 8.) Now the high performers are
ready to commit these technologies to a larger
High performers are also wading into social
part of their organizations—and to harvest their
collaboration with the goals of capturing
transformational potential.
knowledge, fostering innovation, and boosting
productivity. (See Figure 10.) They are taking
Fully 69 percent of high performers (versus 42
greater advantage of their investments in
percent of others) are already committing to
collaboration technologies and are improving
mobile transactions, allowing their customers to
the way they access and leverage new insights
reorder their favorite pair of shoes, book
from customers. “For us, social collaboration is a
travel, pay for their coffee, and even transfer
godsend. For the first time, we’re able to talk with
cash between bank accounts on the go.
our consumers instead of to them,” declared one
Fifty-four percent of the exemplars have also
global CIO.
deployed a mobile-enterprise app store (versus
only 22 percent of other organizations), providing
enterprise-grade functionality to their mobile
estments
their social networks beyond people to intelligent
users. (See Figure 9.)
16
Forward-looking organizations are extending
objects—such as their products. For example, the
engines on Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner aircraft
are designed to transmit performance data in
the form of news feeds to which maintenance
5a
FIGURE 8
High performers
are committing to
Average adoption rates for digital-related technologies
Deployed/
deploying
5
In a pilot
4
In a proof
of concept
3
Reading and
monitoring
digital technologies
2
HIGH PERFORMERS
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
Doing
nothing
1
Security
ACCENTURE
Virtualization
Cloud
Architecture
computing
Information
Business
analytics
Social
collaboration
Mobility
# D i g i t a l IT
8

19. FIGURE 9
Percent of organizations that are are
Percent of organizations that
committing to mobile enterprise
committing to mobile enterprise
apps stores
apps stores
Percent of organizations that are are
Percent of organizations that
committing to mobile transactions
committing to mobile transactions
69% %
69
High performers
are “mobilizing”
their business
54% %
54
42% %
42
22% %
22
OTHER
HIGH
HIGH OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
PERFORMERS
PERFORMERS ORGANIZATIONS
HIGH
HIGH OTHER
OTHER
PERFORMERS
PERFORMERS ORGANIZATIONS
ORGANIZATIONS
teams can subscribe. Allowing the engine itself
predictive-analytics technology, the performance
to automatically share its status enables service
data helps optimize aircraft maintenance and
teams to more easily maintain it, reducing
flight operations, anticipating the need for parts
costs and increasing its lifespan. Coupled with
replacement, for instance.
5d
17
FIGURE 10
How would you rate the importance of the following objectives and your
performance in achieving those objectives when leveraging collaboration technologies
(interactive portals, social networking, video, instant messaging, SharePoint, wikis)
in your organization?
My employees expect to be able
to use a social network
5
Capturing and sharing knowledge
4
High performers
take significantly
greater advantage
of their investment
in collaborative
technologies
PIONEERING
Delivering services and after-sales support
3
2
Improving employee
productivity
1
BASIC
Fostering innovation
HIGH PERFORMERS - Performance
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS - Performance
Increasing sales effectiveness
through a larger network
Reducing the cost of doing business
Getting new insights
from customers
HIGH PERFORMERS - Importance
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS - Importance
High Performance IT research

20. 71
% of high performers’ total
employee interactions are selfservice and seamless across
channels.
18
ACCENTURE
# D i g i t a l IT

21. 06
07
08
09
INSIGHT 06
Empowered
employees are
the force for
digital business
Employees are increasingly mobile and teams of
employees and freelance resources more often
form on the fly—making work hours
and locations completely irrelevant. And because
they so depend on their technology portfolios
to make it work, they often want to be able
to choose their own devices and their own
productivity applications that they must be able
to access 24/7.
High Performance IT research
19
00

22. The high performers in IT aren’t waiting around
for trouble tickets from these employees.
Accenture’s High Performance IT research shows
that their employees are strongly empowered to
handle most of their own day-to-day needs—from
concerns that are as basic as a password reset or
as sophisticated as using the Web-based tools
needed to crowd-source new product concepts.
This mindset means that most high performers let
We’re not just a bunch of SQL programmers doing
relational databases. The complex data analytics
and big data problems come back to IT. The tool
kit has become much more complex; it’s more
diverse. We have a lot of ways to solve problems
today that we did not have before.”
their employees bring their own mobile phones
and tablets to the workplace. They are well past
the point where bring-your-own-device (BYOD)
behaviors are seen chiefly as threats to data
security; rather, far-sighted CIOs view employees’
mobile tools as productivity multipliers, regardless
of who bought the devices. “What that means,”
Far-sighted CIOs view employees’
mobile tools as productivity
multipliers, regardless of who
bought the devices.
explains Bill VanCuren, CIO of NCR Corp., “is that
20
only the really complex problems now come to IT.
The same self-service concept extends to the high
performers’ customers and suppliers. One example
is the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). It is looking
FIGURE 11
High performers
empower their
employees to self-
Percentage of total interactions that are
or could be completely self-service and
via a seamless interface across channels
manage over 70
(for example, mobile, social networks, desktop,
percent of their
and video):
interactions at work.
71 %
ARE NOW
Employee
interactions
29 % 21%
31 %
Customer
interactions
they can manage their taxes on the go. ATO CIO
Bill Gibson recently commented, “When a tax
ATO to get data. You take that principle wider and
Supplier
interactions
56 %
COULD BE
61%
Employee
interactions
24%
the form factor doesn’t matter.”3
68 %
43%
Customer
interactions
HIGH PERFORMERS
ACCENTURE
can access on a tablet or smartphone so that
agent is doing something, they are accessing the
36%
84 %
to provide services and tools that business owners
49%
Supplier
interactions
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
# D i g i t a l IT

23. Customers, partners, and employees have
diverse desires, ambitions, and objectives
when they interact with each other and with
interactions are self-service or seamless across
an organization. It is imperative for CIOs to
channels. (See Figure 11.) This represents only
anticipate and support those needs when turning
a slight increase from 2010, when respondents
offline interactions into digital interactions. With
reported that 26 percent of customer interactions
online, social and mobile customer interactions
were self-serviced online. Granted, organizations
costing a fraction of what it costs to serve these
have had to adapt from siloed interactions
individuals in person or over the phone, the
(for instance, most online and mobile systems
potential benefits of deploying these technologies
used different interfaces until recently) to
are significant. Yet Accenture’s research shows
omni-channel interactions with seamless
that, among both high performers and the
interfaces. But the pressure for more self-service
rest, not even a third of customer and supplier
is very real: a new generation of digital buyers
is expecting not only real-time, round-the-clock
experiences, but also increasingly personalized
services. The message for CIOs is clear.
21
ACCESSING THE RIGHT DATA
AT THE RIGHT TIME
A digital business is all about real-time business insights
driving fast decisions and faster actions. These insights create
the context for better digital customer experiences, enhanced workforce
sidebar chapter 6
and supplier capabilities, and differentiated products and services. (Figure 12.)
FIGURE 12
High performers’
Percentage of CIOs who say data that employees need to do their work is ...
... most accessible
... most granular
employees have
... real-time
better access to the
OTHER
OTHER
OTHER
HIGH
HIGH
HIGH
PERFORMERS ORGANIZATIONS PERFORMERS ORGANIZATIONS PERFORMERS ORGANIZATIONS
Customer
69 %
23 %
46 %
16 %
46 %
26 %
Products/services
62
22
58
16
42
42
14
38
9
23
12
Employees
54
26
38
17
46
data that they need
22
Suppliers/partners
detailed, real-time
24
to do their jobs
Percentage of respondents who answered 5 on a scale of 1 (not accessible) to 5 (most accessible)
High Performance IT research

24. 77
% of high performers’ data
management investments are
achieving or exceeding
business value.
22
20
ACCENTURE
# D i g i t a l IT

25. 07
08
09
10
INSIGHT 07
Mastering data
to drive outcomes
creates competitive
advantage
The problem for businesses is no longer the
absence of data. In a time when they are flooded
with new data, the problem becomes the absence
of the right data, which is what will produce
the sharp insights that spur the most actionable
outcomes. And those outcomes, in turn, create
competitive advantage.
High Performance IT research
23

26. High performers are far closer to the ideal of
having the right data. They have been investing
in master data management and data quality
management technologies. It needed to achieve
assurance for years. Today, the majority of
one version of the truth, enabling decision makers
high performers are fully committed to these
to focus their discussions not on the “what” but
information-management technologies. Their
on the “why” and “how”.4
investments in data management and predictive
and descriptive analytics are paying off: twice as
Building on this strong foundation and
many high performers as other organizations are
understanding the dynamics between information
achieving or exceeding the business value they
and business processes and systems, high
expected. (See Figure 13.) For example, leading
consumer-goods company Procter & Gamble
realized that in order to move its business to a
forward-looking view, it needed to invest in data
High performers’ investments in data
management and predictive and
descriptive analytics are paying off.
24
00
FIGURE 13
Information
management
investments are
Our current information management investments are achieving or exceeding
the expected business value
77 %
77 %
paying off: twice
as many high
54 %
performers as other
54 %
50 %
organizations
are achieving or
exceeding expected
30%
28%
23%
business value
Data
management
Content
management
HIGH PERFORMERS
ACCENTURE
21%
Descriptive
analytics
Predictive
analytics
19%
Mobile access
to these technologies
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
# D i g i t a l IT

27. performers are gaining the ability to embed
analytics capabilities and feed customer insights
have. The challenge will be to figure out not only
into their processes. (See Figure 14.)
how to collect data but, in many cases, how to
However, even high performers have some way
create it. Accenture contends that whereas the
to go. Although most are leveraging a mix of
current generation of software was designed
internal and external data in their analytical
for functionality, the next generation must be
capabilities, they admit that they still face
designed for analytics as well.
significant data-integration challenges.
What’s the new frontier in data and analytics?
When enterprises don’t have access to the right
data, they need to start looking differently at
how they go about getting data. They can’t rely
solely on the limited universe of data they already
25
00
FIGURE 14
Our organization has realized the following benefits from integrating its business
processes, information, and IT systems to a very large extent
High performers
are building
strategic analytical
62 %
capabilities
46 %
46 %
38 %
7%
2%
Improve the
organization’s ability
to analyze the costs
and benefits of
business processes
Embed real-time,
analytics-based
decision-making
tools into business
processes
HIGH PERFORMERS
3%
Develop and
capitalize on
new insights on
changing customer
behavior
6%
Provide access to
key information
from across a
variety of devices
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
High Performance IT research

28. 46
% of high performers expect to
adopt agile methods across
their organization.
26
ACCENTURE
# D i g i t a l IT

29. 08
09
10
INSIGHT 08
Adopting agile to
become agile
A key reason why high performers are eager to
extricate themselves from their legacy systems is
that they aim to open up many more degrees of
freedom for their organizations. In other words,
they are assiduously developing agile systems
and operations that enable their organizations to
adapt far more quickly.
High Performance IT research
27

30. FIGURe 15
One in five high
performers has
adopted agile
methods across its
To what extent has your organization
adopted agile methods as an approach
to delivering applications?
(”Today” compared with “Target”)
organization
In essence, the high-performing teams are using
agile methods to build simple, elegant, and
flexible architectures that make it much easier to
46 %
36
0
18
18 %
55
9
18
3%
48
28
21
29 %
50
14
7
experiment with new technologies, respond to
changes without the need to shut down systems,
and add functionality as required. Agile methods
also mean making incremental technological
changes and quickly learning from them, rather
HIGH
PERFORMERS
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
We have adopted agile across our organization
We have used or are using agile on a few select projects
We are reading and evaluating
We do not use agile
Accenture’s research finds that one in five high
28
performers has adopted agile methods across the
organization—that’s six times what others do.
than committing time and resources to massive
monolithic rollouts.
High-performing teams are using
agile methods to build simple,
elegant, and flexible architectures.
(See Figure 15.) The benefits? Their companies can
respond far faster to changes in their business,
sensing and dodging problems and jumping more
nimbly onto opportunities.
In addition to building an agile architecture,
high performers are remodeling their portfolios
of applications to respond to volatility—not only
to deal with increased market disruption and
uncertainty, but also to handle more interactions
with partner organizations and to handle faster
changes to business models. Compared with
other respondents, high performers have been
ACCENTURE
# D i g i t a l IT

31. FIGURE 16
We have one global or regional instance; updates are monitored globally
Compared with
other organizations,
69 %
64 %
60 %
high performers are
58 %
55 %
more disciplined
in reducing the
applications count
in their portfolios
37%
29 %
18%
Sales and
marketing
36%
25%
21%
14%
Customer
service
Finance and
administration
HIGH PERFORMERS
Human
resources
Distribution and
supply chain
Operations
and production
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
better able to combat complexity because
us they have recently upgraded their sales and
they have successfully reduced the numbers
marketing applications, compared with 26 percent
of applications in their portfolios—while
of other organizations. This rationalized and
modernizing those portfolios. (See Figure 16.)
modernized portfolio of applications gives high
For example, 60 percent of high performers report
performers the flexibility to respond to business
that they already have one global or regional
change more swiftly.
instance of their sales and marketing applications
compared with 18 percent of other organizations.
Moreover, 60 percent of high performers told
High Performance IT research
29

32. 85
% of high performers identify
skills in new technologies as
one of the top skills to have
for future success.
30
ACCENTURE
# D i g i t a l IT

33. 09
10
INSIGHT 09
Investing early in
technology skills
provides an edge
Accenture’s research finds that the high
performers identify, early on, the internal and
external skills they need. Because they are avid
experimenters, they can quickly spot where there
are gaps in capabilities and skills. They have an
especially keen eye for skills in new technologies,
with 85 percent of high performers telling us skills
in new technologies are some of the top skills to
have for future success. (See Figure 17.) One-third
of high performers have already addressed this
gap (versus only 3 percent of other organizations)
and another 44 percent are busy recruiting and
training in those skills today (versus 30 percent of
other organizations).
High Performance IT research
31

34. 9aR
FIGURE 17
High performers
identify, early on, the
internal and external
Top five skills CIOs will need to be successful as their sourcing and operating models
evolve toward a standardized and simplified architecture:
85 %
skills they need
61%
New technologies
knowledge and
skills
69 % 72%
62 % 63%
Business
knowledge and
relationship skills
Service
integration skills
HIGH PERFORMERS
66%
54 %
54 % 53%
Enterprise
architecture and
Information
management skills
Requirement
analysis skills
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
“It’s incumbent on IT to be early adopters of the
technologies,” says NCR CIO Bill VanCuren. “So the
top of the list for most high performers. Their CIOs
first challenge is to get your own IT organization
recognize how critical it is for IT leaders at many
on board with change. Yes, you have to balance
levels to be able to communicate effectively with
your current set of IT offerings with the next wave
32
Business knowledge and soft skills are also at the
their business colleagues.
of technologies that you’re exploring, but meeting
the challenge starts with the IT organization’s
The Accenture research reveals that leading
ability to take risk and learn new things and then
CIOs are very conscious of the talents available
be the change agent for the company.”
beyond their own organizations. They think
in terms of a talent network across partners,
FIGURE 18
High performers
are conscious of
the talents available
beyond their own
We have a comprehensive sourcing
strategy; strategic vendors are aligned
to business requirements and priorities
(”Today” compared with “Target”)
organizations
mindset, of course, to think about tapping into
32
skills beyond full-time staffers, but it’s crucial in a
world in which requirements change quickly, and
agility is key. And, it’s a different type of talent that
%
7
%
ACCENTURE
strategy, aligning key partners with business
other organizations. (See Figure 18.) It’s a different
%
HIGH
PERFORMERS
high performers has a comprehensive sourcing
priorities—and doing so three times more than
50%
18
outsourcing firms, and consultants. One in five
is needed in the digital world. There is a need for
professionals who are comfortable with fluidity
and change.
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
# D i g i t a l IT

35. 10
INSIGHT 10
The marriage of
IT security and
business risk
Despite an increasing focus on securing the
growing digital business, IT departments struggle
to keep pace with recent advances in security
technologies. Although respondents from most
organizations believe they currently have the
right level of investment in compliance and
overall security, 45 percent concede they have
been underinvesting in cybersecurity. There is a
general understanding that endpoint security is
not enough, but the move to active defense—
staying one step ahead of the attackers—isn’t
yet happening on a broad scale.
High Performance IT research
33

36. Although security technologies are maturing
rapidly and communities are forming to expose
risks, the biggest problem is slow adoption
give high priority to defining an overall security
of solutions that already exist. IT’s core challenge:
strategy, improving their approach to business
get current with best practices in security
continuity, defining a risk-based approach to
while getting smarter about the new active-
security, and shoring up their security controls
defense possibilities.
associated with mobility.
Security is assuredly an area in which the high
With improving the ability to anticipate cyber
performers far outpace other organizations in
threats as a top priority, high performers are
terms of priority. High performers put significantly
more emphasis on the ability to anticipate cyber
In the high performers’ mind, there
is no point at which IT security
ends and business risk begins; high
performers see the two blending
together seamlessly.
threats and on clarifying the security governance
FIGURE 19
High performers
model and organization structure than do other
IT organizations. They are also twice as likely to
view improving
their ability
34
to anticipate
cyber threats and
their approach to
business continuity
10a as their highest
security priorities
Please describe the security priorities for your organization:
62 %
62 %
x2
62 %
62 %
x3
x2
54 %
54 %
x3
x2
HIGH PRIORITY
40%
x2
28%
24%
18%
Improve
our approach
to business
continuity
Improve our
ability to
anticipate
cyber threats
HIGH PERFORMERS
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
ACCENTURE
46 %
46 %
23%
26%
15%
Minimize
or prevent
system
downtime
Define an
overall security
strategy
Clarify the
security
governance
model and
organization
structure
Implement
or improve
security controls
associated
with mobility
Improve
information
and data
protection
controls
20%
Baseline the
organization’s
risk profile;
define a
risk-based
approach to
security
38 %
23%
Improve
our identity
management
capability
# D i g i t a l IT

37. 10b
6c
further along in responding to that challenge—
holistic security policies in general. Their CIOs
are acutely aware of the need to protect their
organizations’ intellectual property, product
The security and risk management
function is moving outside the boundaries
of traditional IT to protect intellectual
property, product innovation and unique
processes (”Today” compared with “Target”)
50%
35%
More than a quarter of the high performers
risk management functions to include
27%
intellectual property, product innovation, and
research. (See Figure 20.)
product innovation,
5.0
Meeting
and processes
HIGH
PERFORMERS
3.0
2.0
8%
processes—doing so three times more than
other organizations, according to Accenture’s
protect their IP,
4.0
innovation, and processes. (See Figure 19.)
are expanding the scope of their security and
Are your ap
High performers
TECHNICAL NEEDS
and indeed, in developing more effective, more
FIGURE 20
1.0
1.0
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONS
Scale of 1 to 5, 1 = not me
In the high performers’ mind, there is no point at
which IT security ends and business risk begins;
work hand in glove with the lines of business—
high performers see the two blending together
four times more than other organizations.
seamlessly. Eight out of ten already track their
And more than one-third of high performers
organizations’ operational risks stemming
measure the value of security and track specific
from IT investments—notably those in digital
outcomes of incidents and breaches, attributing
technologies. Their goal is to keep risks in check;
business value to security. Only 5 percent of other
75 percent of high performers aim to continue to
organizations are doing that today.
lower their risk profiles in the short term. To that
end, almost half of their security organizations
High Performance IT research
35

38. CONCLUSION
In previous rounds of Accenture’s High Performance
IT research, we discussed how little change there
has been across the IT disciplines. Although the high
performers have been operating consistently at
levels far and above the rest, overall there have been
very few step changes—that is, few pronounced
differences from one round of research to the next.
However, this fourth round of the research reveals
some stark distinctions. Not only is the gap between
the high performers and the rest as wide as ever, but
high performers now have the tools and know-how—
digital tools and digital know-how—to race far
ahead of the rest.
36
ACCENTURE

39. the CIO’s relationship with the rest of the C-suite
is vitally important for their success; and, as
technology becomes more central to businesses,
This raises many provocative questions: Will the
the IT and business agenda becomes one and the
high performers already on the digital journey
same. This is something for CIOs to think about
be the leaders of business and industry if they do
as they look at their organizations in the future.
it right? What will happen to the organizations
And it’s a challenge for Accenture as we embark
that are distinctly far behind? And what will
on the next round of research.
happen to the IT function itself as business and
IT converge in the digital world? Will the “high”
in high performance be redefined once again?
One thing we do know is that over the course of
the four rounds of Accenture’s High Performance
IT research, there are three trends that continue
unchanged: across the board, the gap between
high performers and the rest remains wide;
High Performance IT research
37

40. Profile of a high performer
Three building
blocks provide a
guide for CIOs
IT Agility
n
architecture to be a critical IT requirement
n
IT Execution
n
Provides access to the right management
Considers a strong and mature enterprise
Proactively retires legacy systems and
achieves higher levels of end-to-end systems
interoperability and availability
tools and information for proactively tracking
the performance of IT in the organization to
internally and externally to optimize the
sustain continuous improvement
n
n
automation of processes
Measures the impact of enterprise
architecture projects
n
Has comprehensive data-management policies
and procedures to enforce data standards
n
Integrates the portfolio of applications
Manages systems that are responsive to
changing business-information needs
and shares data as “services” across
the infrastructure
and security
38
n
Proactively measures and monitors
IT Innovation
performance of applications and replaces
n
some to drive greater returns
innovative technologies
n
Prioritizes investments in applications on
n
Leads the market in adoption of
Positions the IT organization to play a critical
the basis of users’ needs for business
role in the innovation process of the
process improvement
organization and uses IT to craft business
n
Understands the value of being able to track
strategies and create new business
benefits of infrastructure investments at all
opportunities
times and efficiently manages the costs
n
and benefits of their infrastructure services
functionality and lower operational costs
n
Enforces comprehensive security-governance
n
Works closely with business users to optimize
Creates policies that support internal- and
policies and standards that are tied to risk
external-asset reuse
management functions and has secured
n
end-to-end information processes
that allow employees to access and
Provides real-time decision-making tools
analyze information
n
Follows a centralized risk-management
approach and always designs business
processes with security and data
privacy in mind
ACCENTURE
# D i g i t a l IT

41. ENDNOTES
Interview with Michael Harte, CIO,
“
Commonwealth Bank of Australia,” CIO,
August 2, 2013.
“
Deutsche Telekom: Creating a Customer
Portal Using PaaS,” Accenture, 2013.
“
ATO, Defence Talk BYOD,” CIO, July 24, 2013.
Data Analytics Allows PG to Turn on a Dime,”
“
CIO Insight, May 3, 2013.
39
How Accenture
Measures High
Performance
Accenture’s High Performance IT research is a
global effort that measures organizations’ IT
capabilities as an indicator of high performance.
Using the score, we then calculate a mean
To identify high performers, we begin with a core
of the resulting performance scores for each
set of more than 68 performance indicators in
building block. Next, we identify the leaders in
37 questions that address prerequisites for IT
each building block by selecting the participants
leadership in each building block. To ensure that
with scores that were higher than one standard
the appropriate indicators are used, we employ
deviation from the mean result (approximately
reliability scores (using results that are consistent).
the top 15th percentile).
We then use the questions to calculate each
participant’s performance score
High performers are those that are leaders in all
for each of the three building blocks.
three building blocks. For this fourth global High
Performance IT research, we identified 13 high
performers among the 202 respondents.
High Performance IT research

42. ABOUT THE RESEARCH REPORT
The High Performance IT research has been
operating since 2005, and to date has involved
in-depth participation by more than 1,700
For the survey, Accenture used more than
CIOs across 45 countries. Assessments were
150 proprietary indicators of high performance in
conducted by the most senior IT executives in 202
managing IT, across eight IT capabilities. Many of
of the world’s largest private and public sector
these questions were created to shed light on
organizations.
the differences between CIO assessments of
how their IT is performing today and where
The respondents represent a wide range of
industries and geographies: 45 percent were
150 areas of IT management, respondents were
from Europe, 19 percent from North America,
asked to rate their IT practice on a scale ranging
20 percent from Asia Pacific, and 15 percent from
from “Ad Hoc or Not Managed” (1) through
Latin America. The companies have combined
“Defined and Managed” (3) to “High Performing”
annual revenues of over $2.4 trillion and include
(5). The definitions of “Ad Hoc or Not Managed,”
both Accenture clients and non-clients.
40
they aspire it to perform in the future. In the
“Defined and Managed,” and “High Performing”
were based on Accenture’s appraisal of industry
consensus on the given topic.
ACCENTURE
# D i g i t a l IT

43. For more information about the High Performance
IT research, contact Paul Daugherty,
paul.r.daugherty@accenture.com
or visit www.accenture.com/highperformanceit.
41
High Performance IT research

44. Copyright © 2013 Accenture All rights reserved.
Accenture, its logo, and High performance. Delivered.
are trademarks of Accenture. This document makes
descriptive reference to trademarks that may be owned
by others. The use of such trademarks herein is not an
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and is not intended to represent or imply the existence
of an association between Accenture and the lawful
owners of such trademarks.